The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
With increasing sample throughput in sequencing devices, the volume and transmission speed of genomic data is bound to become a limiting factor in the analysis of whole genomes. For example, many modern sequencing devices have a throughput of 1-20 Gbp/day and it can be reasonably expected that new sequencing technologies will increase this throughput even further. Unfortunately, current protocols for data delivery to sequence analysis engines are at least in some cases no longer able to efficiently handle such data volume and will ultimately slow down processing speed, and with that delay sequence analysis and potentially patient care.
To overcome difficulties associated with routing biological sequence information, one or more network nodes may include a packet generator that generates a data packet including a first header containing network routing information and a second header with attributes associated with a layered data model of existing knowledge representative of the biological sequence data as described in US 2012/0236861 and US 2012/0233201. Handling of high volumes of sequence information in a facility is described in US 2014/0278461. However, none of the known systems and methods is especially suitable to manage vast quantities of data in a manner that would streamline subsequent analysis, especially as such analysis relates to particular analysis needs or requirements by a medical professional.
Clearly, even though numerous manners of handling sequence information are known in the art, new modes of data handling are required that allow to take full advantage of the recent advances in sequencing technology.